Why Do we get FAT?

The Old Days

Before we started believing the false science about fat and cholesterol we were lean, and did not develop many of the diseases that afflict a significant proportion of the world today. Prior to the 1970’s our grandparents, even some of our parents cooked with lard, butter or duck fat.

In those days obesity and diabetes rates were very low. Today the supermarket is full of low fat products that come with Heart Foundation Ticks. Many of these so called healthy foods, are full of sugar, additives, genetically modified grains/flour and toxic vegetable oil products. The thing is that low fat food taste awful unless lots of sugar is added. The common misconception, that when you eat fat, you get fat, is just wrong. Why? In the 60’s and early 70’s cardio vascular disease (CVD) was becoming more prevalent in the USA. CVD was seen as the No. 1 health problem of the USA. Well-intentioned scientists had a invalid hypothesis that there was a link between dietary cholesterol intake and CVD.

New Dietary Guidelines – The biggest public health trial in our history.

In response to this incorrect science the government released new dietary guidelines – Low Fat, High Carbohydrate was the order of the day in the newly developed food pyramid. People stopped eating healthy fats and started using highly processed vegetable oils. These oils have an adverse effect on our bodies right down to the cellular level, and therefore disrupt every system within our body. People were also encouraged to eat high carbohydrate foods.

When we eat highly processed, nutrient void carbohydrates they can cause dramatic surges of glucose into the blood stream. The constant surges of too much glucose from highly processed food, being released into the blood stream causes many problems for the organs that are trying to control our blood sugar regulation, namely the pancreas, liver and adrenal glands. These organs eventually become exhausted and further impact other systems within the body.

Blood Sugar Dysfunction is Killing us

As glucose levels soar, excessive amounts of insulin are needed to bring the body back into homeostasis. However insulin is a storage hormone. Yes that’s right it is a FAT Storage Hormone, most people think it’s job is to lower blood sugar but this is not true. Its job is to transport glucose to the cells for energy and then store any excess in the muscles and the liver. When we constantly have too much glucose and therefore too much insulin in our blood, eventually the liver and muscles become full, and the insulin then carries the glucose to the adipose tissue to be stored as triglycerides. This is the cause of us to putting on weight especially visceral fat around the tummy.

It is therefore the consumption of medium and high levels of carbohydrate foods along with poor quality hydrogenated vegetable oils that have caused us to become fat not the consumption of healthy animal fats. Unfortunately we have all been sold the biggest lie in the history of the world and it has created a global epidemic of chronic disease, and massive wealth for a small number of massive global processed food corporations that are complicit in helping people to an early grave.

Andre’s Key Point: Blood Sugar Regulation is a hard wired system in our body. Our Body has the innate intelligence to regulate all the systems in our bodies. However today the intelligence of body has been largely impeded by stress. This stress is not just the normal stress you would think about, but the significant stress our body is put under by the body reacting to hourly dips and highs of blood sugar levels.

Our Fear of Fat is based on false science

Our Fear of he very thing that we are lead to believe makes us FAT and gives us Heart Disease is actually the one thing that if we include in our diet can help improve our health. The best macro-nutrient for our Heart is FAT, our Heart needs FAT to operate in an optimised state. Inflammation is the true cause of heart disease. So what causes inflammation? You guessed it, high carb diet, high insulin levels, processed foods, stress, smoking, alcohol. Low cholesterol is not healthy. Low cholesterol is linked with depression, aggression, Alzheimer’s, suicidal thoughts to name a few. Cholesterol is required to make brain cells. You need cholesterol for memory and cognitive function. Yes the pharmaceutical industry that makes $30Bn a year is now even pushing for children to be forced to take Cholesterol lowering drugs when they are as young as 5 years of age. They are driving to change the health policies on safe levels of Cholesterol. If that isn’t like putting the fox in the chicken coop I don’t know what is.

Summary

Well meaning researchers wanted to cure the population of heart disease, but they jumped in too fast, they sought fame and with passion they started experiements with an ingrained hypotheses, and when the results did not align they discarded those results and only used the data that supported their belief. They then gained positions on the most influential boards and government panels to influence the dietary guidelines. They jumped the gun, the notion that fat makes you fat, eating cholesterol raises your cholesterol are ingrained in our beliefs and seem logical and true. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is this simple concept of “fat makes you fat, and eating cholesterol raises your cholesterol” actually requires a lot of science and understanding to de-bunk it, and therein lies the problem. To prove a simple theory wrong, you have to have a great understanding to truly believe what is counter-intuitive. I and many others call this challenging a Belief.

Andre’s Tip: Sugar of all types is a drug and it strips us of our innate intelligence our dynamic balance to manage our body and health. Remember most Low Fat foods are full of sugar.

Let’s challenge beliefs more as sometimes we will find that our beliefs are wrong. Just like eating Healthy Fats make you Fat.

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Andre’s Tip: Clinical trial research shows that people who reduce total carbs are the ones who see the benefit–in terms of weight loss, blood glucose control, and lipid markers.

If you really want to get one of the best books on this topic Nina Teicholz who reviewed my blog post provided me with the note below to make more people aware of her book which i have read 3 times it is an international best-seller, The Big Fat Surprise explains the politics, personalities, and history of how we came to believe that dietary fat is bad for health. The Big Fat Surprise was also the first mainstream publication to make the full argument for why saturated fats–the kind found in dairy, meat, and eggs–are not bad for health. The Economist named it the best science book of 2014 and called it a “nutrition thriller.” The BMJ praised the book in an extensive review, and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition said, “All scientists.. and every nutrition science professional…should read this book.”

Amen. I agree whole heartedly. Thank you for writing such an excellent and easy to understand piece. I follow an autoimmune protocol for my thyroid illness (Hashimotos) and no doubt I brought that on from years of too much sugar, processed crap, stress, and I’m sure antibiotics and birth control didn’t help. I now eat lots of excellent fats and no sugar, gluten or processed food …and I feel better at 41 then I did at 21. I also read and love Paul Pitchford’s book, Healing with Whole a Foods. I’m a health and life coach today and talk about our need for good fats all the time. I’ll certainly refer others to your article. Blessings, Julie

Thank you so much Julie, yes our health can really be changed by good healthy food. Not the food we think is healthy, but real food. We really need to create change in the world. I can not thank you enough for your kind words and your post. Maybe we could do a post together.. focused on Hashimotos? Look forward to hearing from you. Eat well.. Andre